


Rituals

by Willow1977



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Curse Breaking, F/M, Friendship/Love, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Rituals, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 02:29:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30098916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willow1977/pseuds/Willow1977
Summary: Hermione goes through rituals to deal with the aftermath of the war.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 8
Kudos: 58





	Rituals

**Author's Note:**

> This is a one shot. I have no plans on writing more on this piece. It was just something I needed to write and get out.

She walked, with careful steady steps, through the tight quarters of the cave-like path, the sound of the water dripping echoing in the background as she made her way downwards. This was a journey she hadn’t taken in months, more than likely a huge reason why she hadn’t been so steady since that fateful day in July. She knew what she was, and that there were rules and responsibilities set for her she had been failing to do. As she reached the widening opening, the sweet smell drifted through… the smell of mint and lemon and the smell of salt and heat and under it all... water.

Hermione gets to the entry, and sees the first pool, and lights the candles on the edge… she then unbinds her hair, letting it fall into a long white waterfall of hair that hits right above her waist. She then slips out of the white linen robe she had worn to make the journey into the ritual caverns. 

She could feel herself soaking in the water, connecting the pieces of her mind that had been broken for months, if not longer. She let her thoughts drift, as they were supposed to as she soaked in this pool, to let the water and the magic do its work on her tattered psyche.

So much had happened since the sixth year at Hogwarts.

Harry had won and yes, he had destroyed Voldemort’s snakey ass, Thank Merlin.

He and Ginny had tried to make it a go, but just too much stuff happened in that year apart while they had been on the run. Harry had changed too much in the year on the run, and Ginny, well, Ginny had seen one too many broom closets of Hogwarts in the time away from Harry. He had a hard time when each of Ginny’s flings would show up out of now where and talk about what they had done in said broom closet with Harry, right there. He had chalked it all up to that was fine. They hadn’t been a couple then, but then they both realized Ginny didn’t want kids, or a quiet sort of life, that changed things.

Ginny wanted the glitz and the glamour of being Mrs. Potter, and all the poshness of wealth and fame that if Harry had done what she had demanded, he would had been ready to shoot himself in a few months. 

It had been a dramatic, loud breakup in the middle of one of Molly’s famous Sunday Roast family dinners at the Burrow when the butterbeer went flying. 

She had been pushing and hinting that he needed to give a ring that was no less than seven carets and she had started to talk wedding plans in front of him to her mother when he brought up the fact he hadn’t even thought about asking her yet. 

That breakup had been an utter mess to deal with, and the backlash had been a bloody nightmare as well. 

And Ron…

Oi, Ron.

Ron, well, Hermione didn’t care to think about how fucked up she and Ron had been. They had given it a go but in less than three months; he was cheating, shagging every doe-eyed, short-skirted witch that flashed their eyes at him. When she called him out for his behavior after catching him at the Leaky, with his hand up Lavender Brown’s skirt in a bathroom stall, He had gotten and he blamed her for his inability to be faithful, claiming her determination to stay a virgin made her a frigid bitch and she had hexed him brutally after that.

It had cost her her friendship with Molly Weasley and Ginny, both of who had found out the hard way that Harry wasn’t going to let Ron get away with bad-mouthing her anymore. blamed Hermione for the breakup, claiming Ron couldn’t have done it, while the twins were firmly behind Hermione. Molly disowned the twins, and Harry adopted them as his older brothers. 

She thought about the other rather insane things that had occurred. Harry was an Auror now, one of the best actually, and had taken his family seat and was known in both Muggle and Wizarding Britain as Lord Harry James Potter, Earl of Godric.

After the war, she had done spells to help him heal mentally from having Riddle’s horcrux inside of his head, and mind healers had helped deal with the backlash of the years prior. She, herself had gone to, and while they helped as did curse breakers and such, no one had been able to remove the scars from the curse in the fifth year or the carving on her arm from Bella’s cursed blade that still had a horrid way of breaking open randomly to bleed, not to mention the fact it had been draining her core magicks more and more. 

He was why she was here, in this cavern chamber, doing this purifying ritual, hoping to ease the damage from the curse marks on her body. 

She flicked her fingers, casting a bit of wandless magic to light the second round of candles, as her wand and all her clothing, jewelry and anything not part of herself had been left outside the ritual chamber with him.

She stood, and moved into the second smaller chamber, lit only a handful of fat white candles. She gasped softly as she saw the clear ice blue pool, that seemed to glow from the crystal formations that created the glass-like tub that she would be stepping into shortly for the second part of the ritual if Magic deemed her worthy of the honor. 

She took a calming breath, remembering she had to go into the pool with an open mind, and an open heart and allow the magic to do its bidding. Harry had done this, and had encouraged her to try, and had so with this knowing look in his eye. She trusted him, so she had agreed to the series of three-week-long rituals. 

She had fasted and forced herself to see the truth of who she was. She had to admit to her mind healer her genuine feelings about Harry, about Ron, and about the war. She also had to come to terms with her own weaknesses, including her need to seek out knowledge, sometimes to the point of failing to care for herself, and her need to protect Harry no matter what may happen to her in the process. 

She slid into the pool, submerging her head as she did so, soaking her entire body from head to toe, as her thoughts seemed to focus on one word as she did so, unbidden. 

As she came up from the water, with a gasp, as she took that first deep breath a shock of light hit her curse marks, and she felt a sharp burning pain hit her magical core and it seemed to explode outwards, lighting up the caverns and echoing through the tunnel and she saw nothing but black. 

When she finally came to, her eyes heavy as if she had been in a drugged sleep for days, blinking, a single word slipped from her lips, as she blinked, attempting to focus on the face that floated in front of her vision-

“Harry?”

The green-eyed, dark-haired wizard touched her face, and little sparks formed, and she half-smiled.

“It was you.”

He grinned back, and leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead and then to her lips, holding her to him- 

“Yea, It’s me Mi. We’re good? Glad it's me?”

“Always Harry. Always“


End file.
